This is a rough preview of what is coming in our next tour of Zimbabwe. Since Bangladesh had toured Zimbabwe before in the year 2001, so this is somewhat easier for us to assume what can happen in the coming Zimbabwe tour during Febraury-March 2004.

When Bangladesh toured Zimbabwe in 2001, things were happy for the cricket fans. It was the first away tour for Bangladesh as a test playing nation, and also the second and the third test matches for Bangladesh in that tour.

Bangladesh was then fresh from the memories of the fantastic inaugural test match against India at home, and a very good One Day International match against England in the ICC Knock Out tournament in Kenya. There were also the good memories of a victory behind the scenes against the arch-rivals Kenya in a practice match.

So when the Bangladesh team went on tour in Zimbabwe, our team was mentally in a very good shape. The end result did not go Bangladesh's way, but there was always the hope of a win somewhere.

Things are also the same this time around. Bangladesh is hoping to get one of the three following things: a test match draw by playing all five days, a win in one test, or a win in the five match one day series.

But there is a still a little difference between the last tour and the coming up tour. This time, Bangladesh is going to Zimbabwe with a broken heart. There have been zero wins for Bangladesh ever since the World Cup 1999 and the team is gradually becoming desperate to win a match or two somewhere along the line.

The inclusion of Dav Whatmore as the coach has also increased the efforts of the Bangladeshi players to achieve a victory, but that is all that the players could receive from all their efforts. I suppose Zimbabwe is also going through a similar time when they were just 1 wicket away from victory against the West Indies at home.

However, there is a huge difference. Zimbabwe team were always competitive against the stronger teams, whereas Bangladesh has been inconsistent in being competitive. Bangladesh also does not have a win in their record books against Zimbabwe in any form of the game whereas Zimbabwe has whitewash written all over them. They have whitewashed us in Zimbabwe before, both in tests and in ODIs, and they can hope to get such double whitewash again in the coming tour.

What our boys would try hard to do is, prevent this from happening. Can they do it this time?